continues. we've heard democrat after democrat say that the sands are shifting a little bit, maybe they will consider impeachment where they haven't before. cnn's special coverage of all of this continues with "newsroom" right now. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >> a good thursday morning to you, i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm poppy harlow. no shortage of news from the white house this morning. you just heard the president attempting once again to get the final word on the russia probe and a whole lot more this morning. he claimed russia did not try to get him elected, plus contradicting his own statement from a few minutes earlier on twitter. then he blasted robert mueller the special counsel as a never trumper who had an ax to grind. >> make no mistake here the president on the white house lawn there recited a series of claims, long debunked claims not based in fact, easily contradicted and fact checked. he said that robert mueller was conflicted. this after a couple of weeks ago he said robert mueller was an

honorable man. his reading of the special counsel report was that it was in favor of him. he said that president obama never confronted russia on election interference when, in fact, we know the president at the time directly confronted vladimir putin in a way that this president has not. you will remember this president stood next to vladimir putin and accepted his denial of interference in the election. >> and just had that call with him and didn't bring it up. >> repeatedly. oddly enough he does confirm a story which the navy had contested and that is that u.s. navy made an effort to block the name of the "u.s.s. john mccain," which is named after both john mccain's father and grandfather, the first two father and son pair to hold the rank of four star admiral. he said the president, they thought they were doing me a favor. the president apparently confirming -- >> is that someone in the what u.s. did that. >> on direction from the white house felt the need to block out the name of a u.s. naval war ship because it might insult the president in some way. this is the world we live in today. we've got a panel of very smart

people around us here, but we have abby phillip at the white house, she was there with the president. abby, what stood out to you there from what was really a greatest hit list -- greatest hits list of the president's claims? >> reporter: yeah, jim and poppy, where do we even begin on this one? i think what really struck out at me was how angry the president was at robert mueller. i think he's come really full circle on this. in the days after the mueller report was released he acknowledged that mueller acted on rablly. today when he was asked do you still believe that robert mueller acted honorably the president not only did not say that but he accused mueller of being conflicted, he brought up this case in which mueller had some dispute with the president's golf club. he called mueller a never trumper. i think that in his comments today the president has really shown how irritated he has been by what has transpired over the last 24 hours. he said that mueller was

basically, you know, a part of the never trump movement, part of the movement of people trying to take him out of office. he yesterday why he didn't investigate people like james comey and peter strzok and lisa page. then he went on to talk about impeachment which he called a dirty filthy disgusting word. those were his words exactly, dirty, filthy, disgusting word. he said he is not sure if the courts will even allow the democrats to impeach him. he says this because he believes that mueller basically exonerated him of all crimes. he said mueller was not able to bring charges against him on collusion, conspiracy and obstruction and that is essentially an exoneration for him. so the president is doubling down, he is, you know, strongly going against mueller in this situation, even as his white house is trying to say that the case is closed. clearly in the president's own mind the case is not closed and in a lot of ways he's misrepresenting what mueller is saying and what the mueller

report found particularly as it relates to what russia was trying to do in the 2016 election, jim and poppy. >> he's also making things up. he says that mueller wanted the fbi job when, in fact, steve bannon testified that it was the white house who invited mueller in those days then to offer perspective on the fbi. so the president lied there making that claim as he attacked robert mueller. >> he did. do you know what also is so interesting, abby, is that the president just used those words to describe impeachment, you just laid them out, disgusting, et cetera, but his own team says go ahead and impeach the president, it's going to help us win the election in 2020. ironic. >> reporter: yeah, i think that there is a kind of duality to this in which the president he hates this idea that he might be impeached, in his view democrats are the ones who committed the crimes, but at the same time his aides believe that this could be -- if they have to face impeachment, it could be a potential political boone to him and sources told us yesterday

that the president himself, you know, when he is talking to his friends and adviser, he says bring it on essentially. he says if the democrats want to impeach me, the american people will essentially understand this to be a scam. you know, we will find out whether that is the case or not, whether impeachment even happens and whether he will win out, but i think he's experiencing both thoughts at the same time in which he thinks impeachment is wrong, democrats can't do it to him, but at the same time if they do that he will win out at the end. >> okay. abby phillip, thank you very, very much for all of that. let's bring in our experts and we have many of them. jeffrey toobin, let me begin with you. the fact, mueller is a registered republican, sw ununanimously confirmed by the senate in 2001, 2011, the president may think he is a never trumper, he never went to the white house looking to be fbi director. those are all important facts. >> i thought those 17 minutes were an excellent case study in the difficulty of covering

donald trump because there were so many lies, so many lies, one on top of the other, that if we're doing our job, which is, i think, to try to tell people what the truth is, you know, we would spend the entire hour just going through them. you know, the fact that he's not -- he's not a never trumper, he never asked for the fbi job, he did not have a conflict of interest about business, he did not exonerate the president of obstruction of justice. i mean, all -- and that's just part of -- >> but, jeffrey, you're right. what's interesting, though, is that the president wouldn't spend his time attacking mueller in that way with those lies if he didn't still see him as a threat. so even though mueller doesn't want to testify, your point is, too bad, you should and you likely will, but the president still sees him as a threat. >> clearly he still sees him as a threat. i don't know exactly what the -- you know, to explain the reasons for the lies, you know, sometimes people lie because they're liars, because that's

just how they interact with the world. sometimes they lie because they have a political or a monetary or some sort of motive, but the extraordinary number of falsehoods that he told there, i mean, that to me has got to be the headline because that's got to be our job. >> jeffrey, i'm going to push back for a moment because clearly fact checking the president does work if that is the right word, it does have an impact us because the president's trustworthiness ratings are extremely low for a president. so americans know, the question is what is the political effect ultimately, right? john, i wonder if -- okay, you have one republican, one sitting republican lawmaker who has said the president obstructed justice or there's evidence and that of course is justin amash. you have a lot of former sitting republican lawmakers willing to go there occasionally, a conservative media columnist. does any of that change after hearing from the sphinx yesterday, robert mueller, for the first time in two years.

>> sphinx. >> to say in person things he already said in written form, but to say in person and that matters including contradicting the attorney general on evidence of the president's wrongdoing. >> i don't think it's about changing minds in the short run but he highlighted the key take a ways and the contradictions between what bill barr said about, for example, the office of legal counsel opinion, that the president was never going to be indicted because of their reading of justice department guidelines. that's one of the huge ironies of the outburst we just heard of the president of the united states directed at robert mueller. president trump's bacon was basically saved by robert mueller's commitment to the rule of law and sense of personal decency. and that is a huge deal. when he called him an honorable man he got it right the first time, but this venting of spleen and unhinged attacks and lies directed at robert mueller ignores the fact that the reason he has not been indicted is because robert mueller played it so by the board.

i don't know that he failed, but he is the last honest man in a world of political drifters regarding lies. >> the president may have been honest on twitter. let's pull up his tweet. look at the highlighted part. i had nothing to do with russia helping me get elected. okay? jim emailed the moment that came out. he's saying that russia helped me get elected. okay, that was like 30 minutes ago. here is the president like 20 minutes ago. >> russia did not help me get elected. do you know who got me elected? do you know who got me elected? i got me elected. russia didn't help me at all. russia if anything i think helped the other side. >> well, that's not based on anything whatsoever. >> it's not based on anything, it's just a complete lie. >> which one? >> the fact that that --

>> we could certainly point out -- >> you could point out in passing it's extraordinarily ungracious not to credit his voters with making him president. he said he did it. okay, fine, he did it. we have, let's see, we have out of the words of the mouth of putin that this was his favorite candidate. we have all of the intelligence agencies, we have this exhaustive report and we have the president half an hour ago all saying russia wanted trump to be elected. we have the whole premise of the trump tower meeting. >> helped me. >> yeah, we have the whole premise of the trump tower meeting. everyone knows this. everyone knows this. so the request he becomes following up on jeffrey's point why does somebody tell an obvious lie that everybody knows is just that? i think he's building a political case. >> that's right. >> he's giving some kind of talking points to his die hard supporters who are not really interested in facts, they know they are going to support him, he's just giving them something that is plausible to say. >> to that point why does he think his sporpers are such

rubes? the feedback loop you see and hear between him and some of the reason hosts on fox news is extraordinary. it's unclear who is parroting whose talking points at this point. >> sometimes those talking points are mimicked by russia's talking points. you saw the kremlin in the wake of mueller statement repeating trays that you peer about the white house, the case is et cetera closed, et cetera. bianna golodryga, you are with us as well. john avalon talked about this being an unhinged moment. i wonder if it's hinged in some way in that this is part of an ongoing strategy by this president, is it not, to undermine confidence and he no he is that he's not going to convince the 54% who has already decided they disapprove of his job and that's a pretty solid number. he's just got to keep a 40% with a request he about mueller, et cetera, and as john said smartly, give them kind of an excuse to themselves to continue

supporting him. look, there was nothing we saw or heard from mueller yesterday that veered off of that initial report other than we heard from him. look at how that got under the president's skin. six weeks ago when the report came out he called him an honorable man, today he called him some of the worst offensive language that we have heard him in reference to bob mueller. we have heard him use in reference to bob mueller. so you clearly can see the impact of bill barr's initial four-page memo. i mean, imagine if we had just heard what we heard from robert mueller yesterday three days after that report came out instead of hearing about the four-page report and the summary from bill barr. imagine if we had just heard those eight minutes from robert mueller yesterday. the lines have been blurred, they've been muddied. i didn't hear robert mueller accuse the media of misinterpreting the mueller report as we had heard from bill barr. you heard robert mueller thank the investigators, thank the fbi officials, thank the prosecutors

that had worked with integrity. obviously that being a reference to the president attacking this prosecutorial team for two years now. when it comes to russia you have the administration arguing as they have been and in many respects they're right that this administration has been tougher on russia when it comes to sanctions, when it comes to arming the ukrainians, however, you see the power of the president still denying that russia had an impact or influence on this election, where vladimir putin himself said that i favored donald trump over hillary clinton. where vladimir putin himself said, well, maybe there were some russian patriots that decided to hack some computers. we have very sophisticated computer savvy people in my country. donald trump, by the president of the united states not addressing this head on, not saying this is the one issue we are going to tackle in our election system, our democratic process will not be attacked by any country regardless of who they support, that speaks volumes. that speaks volumes to vladimir

putin and gives him the plausible deniability that he has used to this day. >> jessica roth, a former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york, if we were to sum up mueller's ten-minute statement in two words from yesterday it might be impeach already and, p.s., lose my number. as jeffrey points out a lot of people don't want to go testify in front of congress but they are compelled to or it's the right thing to do. did today just make mueller's testimony before congress even more important and maybe a little bit more likely? >> i think it's always been likely that he's going to testify. >> you do. >> i really don't think that there was any possibility he wasn't going to be called. what he tried to do yesterday was to tamp down expectations about what would happen in that testimony and i thought one of the most important things he said was i will not answer hypotheticals. in other words, i am not going to answer the question that everyone has been building up toward which is if you could have would you have indicted the president for obstruction of justice. >> sure. >> he broadcast that very clear and said my report is my

testimony. i don't think what he said yesterday changes anything legally. it may change the political calculation in terms of how democrats approach that testimony and how most effectively they're going to use his testimony. but you couldn't see a more stunning contrast in styles between bob mueller yesterday and the president this morning. >> that's a good point. >> and between bob mueller and bill barr the attorney general and not just style but also substance here. because it is clear that bill barr -- and keep in mind, i keep saying this, it's the third time robert mueller has said bill barr did not accurately represent the report. he did it twice by letter and once now in person to say it was not the evidence that held me back from indicting, it was policy, which barr intimated the opposite. >> six times. >> yeah. >> six times. >> he was pressed on this. >> he was asked directly by cnn's laura jarrett at the press conference, he said it in writing. over and over again he said olc guidance had nothing to do with -- >> office of legal counsel.

>> that the fact that the mueller couldn't make a decision on whether to prosecute the president for obstruction, that's simply not true according to mueller's own words. >> all right. none of you get to go anywhere. no one gets to get breakfast. a lot more to digest. stay with us, much more on the president's 17-minute very factless rant ahead. welcome to seattle. where people are into coffee, tech, and retirement planning. the perfect retirement for me is doing the things that i want to do, not the things i have to do. unlike seattle, less than half of americans participate in their employer retirement plans. so what keeps people more engaged in their retirement? i want to have the ability to easily transact online, great selection of funds, great advice, everything in one place. helping people in their working years and beyond. that's financial wellness. talk to your employer or start a plan at prudential.

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delicious 100% real chocolate embracing the lightness of crispy rice. crunch. the chocolate bar all americans love. we're joined by john avalon, errol louis, bianna golodryga, jessica roth. there is so much to digest here. once again the president recited a series of lies, repeated a series of lies, easily debunked. hard to pick where you start. >> you pick. >> let's start if we can on the president's attacks on the special counsel robert mueller, a man who he called honorable when the president perceived that the mueller report had exonerated him, now he's no

longer honorable. sometimes i hesitate to play these because they're so full of falsehoods, but let's play it so we can tick off each of the falsehoods on this statement from the president on mueller. >> i think he's totally conflicted because, as you know, he wanted to be the fbi director and i said no. as you know, i had a business dispute with him after he left the fbi, we had a business dispute, not a nice one, he wasn't -- he wasn't happy with what i did, and i don't blame him, but i had to do it because that was the right thing to do, but i had a business dispute. and he loves comey. you look at the relationship that those two -- so whether it's love or a deep like, but he should -- he was conflicted. look, robert mueller should have never been chosen because he wanted the fbi job and he didn't get it and the next day he was picked as special counsel. so you tell somebody, i'm sorry, you can't have the job and then after you say that he's going to

make a ruling on you. doesn't work that way. plus we had a business dispute, plus his relationship with come claims there. he did not want the fbi job, steve bannon testified that the fbi invited robert mueller in. they reached out to robert mueller in bannon's words to offer perspective on the fbi. the business dispute -- >> it is about golf course fees that mueller wanted a little bit back. >> the loving comey line, listen -- >> they weren't that close. >> they worked together at various times in government institutions, yes, by all accounts not particularly close. >> it was not an extraordinarily close relationship. >> right, and yet he makes those claims. anybody want to pipe in on what we do about this as a country when the president repeats claims like this? >> the president is going back to his basic talking points, trying to attack the character of a man he once called honorable whose own discretion

over the report he handled ended up making sure the president was not, in fact, indicted. which i think is extraordinary and a little sinister is the way you get mission creep in the president's bloviating lies. he started to say some things that are a little bit new, the idea that an insurance policy that the russia investigation was intended by democrats to be an insurance policy -- >> that's stolen from the strzok/page text. >> that is something that's being amplified by conservative media to justify and amplify the investigate the investigators for treason charge which now bill barr is going forward on. he said in that rant that this is going to be his greatest accomplishment. this is not behavior becoming of an american president. it's behavior we have seen from urt other autocratic leaders of other countries. this is not a man who is being constrained by couldnscience or dignity. >> you cite a real consequence of the president's accusation

there, which is now the attorney general is following through, he is going to investigate the investigators. >> absolutely she looks to me like a guy who is in trouble. >> i think the question i have this morning watching this as we were coming on set for the show is the why. is this a president feeling boxed in? is this a president who is scared of the testimony that will come before congress? is this a president who is looking at day by day an impeachment potentially more likely? >> that's right. i think he hears the footsteps that are behind him, i think he understands that even though everybody likes to disregard this, but when you look at polls and you see a recent monmouth poll 60% of the americans say they want somebody else to be the president. at some point you have to really start to worry. so what i saw him doing in that rant is kind of franticly trying to shore up his base, give them anything to say. this guy is a liar, this one is conflicted, 18 angry democrats, he rifts through all of these things to allow his followers to

go out and spread it on social media and tell themselves and maybe tell somebody else, well, the whole thing was a hoax, a witch-hunt of course you poke it with a stick, you read any part of it, even just look at the eight minutes we heard yesterday and the whole thing falls apart. i think the president realizes it's going to be harder for him to get from here to next november and have everybody swallow all that. >> the president will do that for anybody he views as a threat. it's not just mueller specific. it's his m.o., it's what he has been doing throughout his presidency. if there's one key theme that stood out from what we heard from mueller yesterday it was read the report. read the report, read the report. if i haven't made myself clear, read the report. everything i have to say and everything that i potentially would say before congress which i don't want to appear before because i will say is what i've written in the report. the report is my find word. how many americans have read the porp ro were? >> how many members of congress? >> and just hearing him say if we had confidence the president

didn't commit a crime we would have said so. that in and of itself was to powerful. >> he didn't need to repeat that line and he chose to obviously -- >> the other line he repeats is no one has been tougher on russia than donald trump in the third person. it's easily disproven, here is a president who has sought to water down sanctions, during the transition those were the discussions with michael flynn that michael flynn felt the need to lie about was discussing softening those sanctions there. he also said obama never confronted russia when he did twice, something the president has neglected to do. jessica roth, you made a very good point while we were in break about mueller's message. hidden, i don't know if you want to say hidden but perhaps below the surface. >> there were a couple things he said explicited and then some things that i heard that seemed to be implicit. one of those implicit messages was that he did not anticipate that attorney general barr would make a statement that the

president had not obstructed justice. one of the lingering questions after the report is did mueller expect that barr would make a decision about obstruction or did he anticipate that congress would through the impeachment process. what i heard from what he was saying yesterday and his discussion of the department of justice policy and how it bound the entirety of the department of justice, including his office, which resided within the department of justice, was that the department of justice could not make a formal accusation against the president. that that was reserved for the other process available which was impeachment. that he was delivering the evidence to congress. he didn't say that explicitly yesterday, but that was the implication. and, again, if you are yeed within that is the suggestion that he didn't anticipate that anyone within the department of justice including the attorney general would make the call that he declined to make. >> if i could take this one step further, i think a lot of people were surprised, i know i was, when bill barr sort of gave an excuse for had the president committed obstruction, here is why he would have committed

obstruction because it was so unprecedented. no president of ever gone through what this president had. if he had committed obstruction it was only because he was so worried about x, y and z. >> that was where barrrepeated some of the president's favor phrases about the media and so on piling on to him. >> he was saying he didn't obstruct justice because he didn't have corrupt intent. instead he was venting anger and frustration and didn't have corrupt intent. >> stay with us. >> let me tell you one thing we're going to do, we're going to continue to fact check the president. >> always. >> that's our job. >> we will be with you every morning at 9:00 a.m. to do just that. let's hope we don't have to. every day is a new day. we will be right back. you should be mad that this is your daily commute. you should be mad at people who forget they're in public. and you should be mad at simple things that are unnecessarily complicated. but you're not mad, because you're trading with e*trade, which isn't complicated.

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ya i don't even know your phone anymore... excuse me?! what? i don't know your phone number. aw well. he doesn't know our phone number! you have our fax number, obviously... today's xfinity service. simple. easy. awesome. i'll pass. welcome back. we're joined now by mike rodgers, former chairman of the house intelligence committee, now a cnn national security commentator to help us digest the president's comments on the white house lawn just a short time ago. mike rodgers, you've served in government a long time. as a republican you have and we have to give you credit here, you have been even handed in sharing criticism of democratic and republican lawmakers and administrations here. i just want to get you to react, particularly someone who has even served for a time on the trump transition team, to the president so easily and

willfully sharing a series of debunked claims on the grounds of the white house. who should americans react to that? >> unfortunately this is the thing that i think sells to a lot of americans outside of washington, d.c. the fact that he's fighting back, he's fighting, you know, department of justice and all other folks who are coming at him, i think has a selling quality. again, outside of a town for people who don't have time to pay attention to all of the details of this kind of thing. i think candidly that's why he does it and that's why he continues to do it. i don't think it serves him well when he does this. i don't think that this going after robert mueller personally is -- a, i think it's beneath the office of the president, but b, i don't think it helps him in any way, shape or form. the guy has a great reputation not only with the bureau but outside of the bureau as a man of integrity. he could have taken a shot at the president yesterday, he didn't do it. he just laid out his case and

said i really don't want to come up and testify. i think the president would have been well to say, hey, the case is closed and walk off to his helicopter. he just can't help himself and he gets angry about it. and i think when you do that in a public setting, that's when you're going to make a mistake and i think that's exactly what he did today. >> all right. we also want you to weigh in on this because this was -- this is just a remarkable story and the president weighed this on it in a remarkable way just now. the president confirmed reports that u.s. navy officials and the white house military office exchanged emails about possibly moving the "u.s.s. john s. mccain" ahead of the president's visit to japan. the navy disputed this and then the president just said this -- >> i don't know what happened. i wasn't involved. i would not have done that. i was very angry with john mccain because he killed healthcare. i was not a big fan of john mccain in any way, shape or

form. wasn't a fan. but i would never do a thing like that. now, somebody did it because they thought i didn't like him. okay? and they were well-meaning, i will say. i didn't know anything about it. i would never have done that. >> okay. he's confirming what barbara starr pentagon correspondent who also joins us now confirmed and reported overnight. barbara, it's significant. the president is saying, yep, this happened. >> yeah, i mean, i think there's very little doubt at this point that the white house military office which helps organize his overseas travel approached the u.s. navy and said something to them, emailed them about keeping the war ship mccain out of the president's sight when he was in japan. whether that was a practical idea, whether anybody thought that was a good idea, whether anything ever really happened about it all remains open to question. look, what we know is there had been a tarp on the ship for work purposes, for repairs, some

people said it was to obscure the name of the ship. by all accounts it was not. that there was a barge there in the water to obscure the name of the ship, by all accounts from sources we are talking to that also was part of the routine maintenance and work being done on the mccain. navy sources telling us that navy sailors -- mccain sailors were not kept away. actually, the facts are both they and the crew of another nearby ship had a four-day memorial holiday pass to be away from their ships. so there's a lot of fine-tuning of what went on here. defense secretary -- acting defense secretary patrick shanahan talked to reporters about this several hours ago in asia where he's traveling and he said -- and i want to quote, because it's important to hear what he has to say. i never authorized, i never approved any action around the movement or activity regarding that ship. furthermore, i would never

dishonor the memory of a great american patriot like senator mccain. i also think it's important, i would never disrespect the young men and women that crew that ship. and he has said that he has his chief of staff to look into all of this and find out what happene happened. >> barbara, i think we lost barbara starr there -- >> for a second. >> we have mike rodgers. mike, can you hear me? >> i can. >> mike rodgers, do you hear jim sciutto? all right. we lost our guests. we are going to get back because reaction to an important story. i should note that ten u.s. sailors died on the "u.s.s. john mccain" in a collision not long ago. so adds to the remarkable factor of concealing that ship to shield the president's eyes from it. we will have more on that right after this break. (paul) great. another wireless ad. so many of them are full of this complicated, tricky language about their network and offers and blah blah blah. look. sprint's going to do things differently.

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i'm jessica dean, we will get back to jim and poppy in just a moment, but first more than 55 million people are under the threat of severe weather again today. voluntary evacuations are under way in arkansas where officials say two levees on the arkansas river could breach. it's not just arkansas. louisiana, mississippi, missouri and oklahoma all dealing with severe storms and record flooding. rosa flores is live in ft. smith, arkansas. just how fast is this river rising and are officials considering mandatory evacuations at any point? >> reporter: you know, jessica, they are definitely considering everything at this point because the water continues to move in. all this water in arkansas is coming from oklahoma. i want to show you around because this very generous

couple that came to take a look at their house allowed us to come with them and you can see around me, there is about a foot and a half of water in this cause already. we were able to gain access because of just how this house is designed, and the couple is actually here with me and i want to talk to them. so they can share their story with us. so this is steve and trish wynn, they've been in this community for about 13 years. >> yes. >> and, steve, tell us how difficult it is for you to come into your house and see it in this condition. >> i don't know how to say it, but it's so sad. i'm starting to cry, but i'm trying to hold back, but, you know, see how that -- you know, you can't describe like when you get into your house and the way it looks right now is, so sad. >> you were telling me that one of the things that you find

heart breaking is that so many of your neighbors, you and your wife, you work your entire life, save your money, buy a new house, it's the american dream to have a home in america. >> yes. yes. >> and yet the water started creeping in slowly and then here we are. >> here we are, yes. it's unbelievable when you see this is water in the house. i don't know how we will recover. that's really sad. because i don't know. it just is heartbreaking. >> steve, thank you so much for allowing us to come with you and, jessica. i mean, it's just heartbreaking. we were on the boat with them as we were riding on the boat in this neighborhood, all of the houses, all around here, are under water and then at a distance you see the arkansas river raging, raging by this neighborhood. here it's calm because we are

inside the house, but it's not the case outside. >> we certainly feel for those people, rosa. i actually started into i career there in ft. smith, will i have had there for a time. it's an amazing community. wishing steve and trish the best. rosa flores, thanks so much. still ahead, boeing ceo says he is confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 max airplanes since the software update, but what did he say when asked if he would let his own family fly on one? of the world, it also has the highest growth in manufacturing jobs in the us. it's a competition for the talent. employees need more than just a paycheck. you definitely want to take advantage of all the benefits you can get. 2/3 of employees said that the workplace is an important source for personal savings and protection solutions. the workplace should be a source of financial security. keeping your people happy is what keeps your people. that's financial wellness. put your employees on a path to financial wellness with prudential.

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boeing ceo is now apologizing to the family of the

victims in those two 737 max crashes and crucially is taking responsibility for the company's handling of the software problems that led to those crashe crashes. >> okay. david, the fundamental question is you had muilenburg the ceo there admitting in another part

of the interview public confidence has been hurt. so how does the public know that boeing has done enough to actually fix this for good when it is this same agency certifying that this time around? again, it's just going to be boeing and the faa saying we are good to go. >> well, that's a really good point, poppy, because it's omitted from the interview. anything to do with what's going to happen tomorrw that's different than what happened yesterday. >> right. >> that is crucial. that's the point that's being missed right now. yeah, sure, i believe that the 737 max 8 mcas system is working properly, but the question that's not being answered clearly and what's not being said is what caused it to miss -- how did they miss this in the first place? their systems are designed to catch these kinds of things and to not under -- under qualify or under estimate the damages that these types of systems could cause and that -- that in lies

the entire issue, the main problem and i don't think they are addressing that. >> i'd like to ask you the question that noora o'donnell asked the boeing ceo, because it is the crucial one. would you put your family on this plane knowing that boeing said it has addressed this, but as poppy said through the same standard that they previously met and that failed to keep the plane safe baugh the faa and boeing said we fixed it between the crashes and there was another deadly crash. why should i feel confident that i could put my family on that plane? >> jim, you asked me this day the day after the ethiopian crash and i said i would not let my grand tower or family on the plane. i would probably do it but with hesitation. i've never been in this situation before. i've even lost confidence in it, as much as i know about what's going on

>> and the problem is what happens when you are not certifying an airplane, then you

have to lay all those people off. it's not government's role to do that.off. it's not government's role to do that. the guflt's role is to make sure that they're classifying the systems they have in place and the delegations they have in place are working properly. that's the failure for the faa. the fix is not to hire a bunch of engineers to have that responsibility. it's clearly there. now, one point i did want to make at this point is they're still waiting for the faa to approve this. they have not even submitted anything to the faa yet. >> it will take a while. >> the faa inspector there, and he's been involved in this, in the aftermath, saying he probably would not consider it safe to go on that plane. that's remarkable. >> david, thank you for the expertise this morning. still ahead, the president attacks again the special counsel robert mueller calling him this morning highly conflicted after a couple weeks ago, he called him honorable. we'll talk ahead. and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else?

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ball. ball. ball. awww, who's a good boy? it's me. me, me, me. yuck, that's gross. you got to get that under control. [ dogs howling ] seriously? embrace the mischief. say "get pets tickets" into your x1 voice remote to see it in theaters. this is cnn breaking news. >> all right, it has already been quite a morning. good morning, everyone. we have breaking news. i'm poppy harlow. >> i'm jim sciutto. it's not been 24 hours since the special counsel broke his two years of public silence with an extraordinary statement on the russia probe, and president trump has unloaded on the proceed and robert muell